Day Twenty-Two with Cancer/Day One without Cancer:
This morning I woke up at 4:30am. I admit, I was very thankful that we weren't staying at my house. I probably would have had to wake up at 2:30 or something. We headed to the hospital and "checked in", getting our super cool pager. I had quite the entourage as I sat in the waiting area. Mom, dad, Sarah, Jason, Jenny, Syd, Chuck, Dusty, and Jeremy were there. We sat there chatting and laughing the whole time, making colon and cancer jokes, and reminiscing. I was afraid that everyone else in the waiting area was going to complain and we were going to get into trouble, but we were having a good time. Sydney was keeping everyone in stitches as she waved to all the people and played on Sarah's ipad. I was called back and mom, Jeremy and I followed everyone back to the next waiting area. It was amazing how many people were going for a colon related surgery! There were so many people in that area that I offered my seat and went to sit at the kids' table. It had chairs with backs that were shaped like clovers...I thought initially that they were like card suits, but I don't think any of the other ones went along with those.
Finally we were all called to the PACU and took the long walk back with mom, Jeremy, and all the others going in for surgery. They called us in one by one, with the automatic door closing behind each person. Mom and I discussed that it seemed a little like The Island and that maybe I was a clone going in to have my organs harvested. That's an uplifting thought, right? I kept thinking about the scene with the football player waking up on the operating table and escaping, just to have them pull him back with meat hooks in his calves. Yucko. I was shown my bed and introduced to my nurse, Mike. He was pretty fun. I did a super fun urine test (which I found out later was them making sure I wasn't preggers) and then I put on my beautiful gown and paper hat. I looked hot. LOL. Mike gave me a painful shot of heprin and then put in my IV.
Shortly after that, Jeremy said he was feeling weird and mom had him take her chair. Within moments his lips went white, his eyes got kinda crossy and he started falling out of his chair. Mom looked at him for a moment thinking he was joking and then ran over to catch his arm before he smacked his head on the floor. She called a couple nurses over and they got him back up into the chair. Everyone was assuming it was a blood sugar issue, so they gave him some cranberry juice and m&m's, which he promptly "got rid of". Mike laughed and said he was stealing my thunder. I joked back that he was just upset that I was in the spotlight instead of him. Mom finally went to get Jeremy's blood sugar monitor and when she and dad came back and he tested, he was normal. He apparently got woozy because he watched them put in my IV and the realization of all that was going to happen to me just hit him. Mike was super cool about the whole thing. He had said that the OR was ready, but he wanted to make sure Jeremy was taken care of first so that I wasn't worrying over it while I waited. They rolled me out and mom, dad and Jeremy walked down the hall with me and kissed me before they took me away.
The halls going to the OR seemed endless. I kept thinking how surprised I was that I wasn't out already. We got into a big freight-type elevator and went up a couple floors, they dropped me outside of the OR and left. At that moment I felt very alone and was wishing that my mother had been able to follow me upstairs. One of the women helping Dr. Vogel came out after a little while. She helped me to feel a little bit better. The team of anesthetists also came out to speak with me. Several minutes later, the whole team came out and had a little meeting around my bed. I kinda felt like they were going to do a prayer huddle over me, but they didn't. Dr. Vogel explained what they were going to do and asked if I had any questions. I felt so silly, but I ended up asking if there was any way they could go around my navel ring hole or something. I just felt like I needed to keep any semblance of normalcy that I was able. He actually really seemed to understand. He said, "Of course! We'll start it a little bit lower and then you can wear a dangly one that covers your scarring." I thought that was super sweet of him. They rolled me in there and then had me get over onto the surgical table, putting my head in the center of this Styrofoam ring and then they strapped my legs down to the table. I told them how surprised I was that I was still so alert for all of this and one of the women said that I probably wouldn't even remember talking to her or anything else that happened in the OR. I started talking with the female anesthesiologist for a little while an before long, I was out.
I woke up very alert in the ICU. They were keeping an eye on me, but I felt so good, I kept wondering why they weren't just letting my parents come in. The nurse said that they were going to wait a few more minutes and then could call them in. My parents came in shortly after and my dad's face was priceless. He looked amazed when he came in. His eyes were huge. I think we all expected for me to be incoherent and drooling, but I felt completely normal. They were allowed 5 minutes with me and then they had to leave, but within 10 minutes they were back. I was surprised to see them. Apparently, as soon as they got back to the main waiting area, the admin assistant person called out our last name. My parents were scared, since they had just left me. They were wondering what would have happened in the short time that they had been walking. They got back to me and a nurse started talking to them and finally she said, "Wait...I need the family for THIS bed." It turns out that the person in the bed next to me was a Lair and not a Lehr. Sound the same, spelled differently. My nurse said they might as well go ahead and walk me to my room instead of going all the way back to the waiting area first. We got to my room and then within ten minutes the rest of the family started coming in. Jason looked super surprised when he saw me as well. Apparently no one thought I was going to look very good when I woke up.
I felt a lot better than I thought I would that day. I was off all my monitors and stuff right away and was able to be off of my oxygen by 7 o'clock that evening. The only time I was feeling a considerable amount of pain was in the night. I had quite a bit of pain in my chest and back, over my collar bone and my shoulder blades. This was because they had to deflate my lungs to do the surgery and my arms were strapped straight out like I was on a cross. After two and a half hours of being in that position, it wasn't really a surprise that I was sore.
Day Twenty-Two: Suck it, cancer.
Song of the Day: Our Hope Endures
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1mu3F0dQz0
Verse of the Day; Psalm 34:7-8
The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear Him, And rescues them. O taste and see that the LORD is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!
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